Not P but Moby-Dick (75)

[Mike Jing]

I agree, but I thought "break the green damp mould with" was fashioned
after the phrase "to break bread with" as a humorous way of saying it. I
could be totally wrong though.


On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 7:03 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that "break the green damp mould" means to sit with Solomon...it
> repeats with
> this real image that man is not fitted to sit down on tomb-stones [even
> some] so old
> as to have green damp mould on them....
>
> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 6:49 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> From Chapter 96:
>>
>> But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing
>> grave-yards,
>> and would rather talk of operas than hell;  calls Cowper, Young, Pascal,
>> Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men;  and throughout a care-free
>> lifetime
>> swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is
>> fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with
>> unfathomably wondrous Solomon.
>>
>> What does "passing wise" mean here?
>>
>> Also, I assume "break the green damp mould with" means to "break bread
>> with", but since Solomon is long dead, so there's only mould on the grave,
>> is that correct?
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>